Never should have let go
by LadyPalma
Summary: When Catherine is leaving the Court, there is one person who has to speak to her before she goes... Based on the song "Drifting further away" by Powderfinger


**_Here I am! What can I say? I simply love these two (and I know I'm sadly one of the few, if not the only one, who does LoL) So, since today's my birthday (:D) I wanted to give myself a gift and so I translated this.. Basically we know everybody's reaction about Catherine's banishment, except for Cromwell and I wanted to give my personal point of view LoL What do you think? Please let me know^^_**

* * *

_Never should have let go_

_Don't go too deep into the flood  
Don't wade too long, you'll poison my love  
Don't shut me out, don't hold it all in  
Don't let my venom get under your skin  
_

"Master Cromwell…" Catherine simply said turning slowly to look the new arrival.

He had just entered the room and bowed to her, but he hadn't spoke t her, not using the title of "Your Majesty", nor in any other way. But she had perfectly expected that ambiguous greeting and that unpleasing visit: in that sort of limbo which she had been living in for a month, she knew that finally that dreaded moment would have come and she knew that he would have been there, because in every sad moment, somehow he was always there.

"It's all ready for leaving" the secretary announced, daring to give her a look to spy her reaction.

She returned the look not showing any weakness, until he was the one to be forced to look down; he just couldn't face her blue eyes, he couldn't face the brightness and the clearness that they reflected and that made him feel terribly dirty.

A part of him hated himself, and that's the reason why the other part had to hate her instead.

_'Cause every word and every turn  
Every sign points to your hurt  
With every hour your drifting further away_

Without looking into the freezing fire of her gaze, he stayed for a while just to spy her slow and precise moves, while she was arranging with an unnatural calm the last things and giving orders to her loyal ladies for that travel without sure destination and without probable return. Every word said was an effort, every move a torture that could only end up in her ineluctable defeat. Because Catherine seemed almost tired of fighting and she was claming up, slave of a too rigid conscience and a faith that would have not saved her.

And Thomas didn't understand her, and the more he didn't understand her, the more he admired her.

_Come make your peace, come find your way  
Come lay your wreath at the alter of change  
Don't lose your step, don't break the bones  
Don't shoulder the burden out there on your own_

"Is there something else?" the Queen asked, turning again to him, without notice, but noticing his inquiring look.

Cromwell shook his head, but incoherently with his answer, he moved a step towards her, until they were one in front of each other.

"Do you really want to go away?" he asked impulsively, daring again to meet her eyes, that appeared now nearly amused.

"It's not like if I had a choice, Master Cromwell"

"You are still in time to change your mind, you know that"

That just whispered suggestion, reflected a secretary's secret hope, the one of helping somehow the woman that Erasmo had defined as "miracle of the female sex", of saving a woman that worth a thousand women, and that had suffered for a hundred of them.

_Don't banish me then bid me home__  
Then tell me where I came undone  
Don't harbor love like it's all your own  
Then linger over what you've done  
Don't sink underneath the weight of  
when you're trying to carry way too much  
_

"Which should I think again about? The King's orders seem clear… And if you refer to my opinion about the King's concubine, then are the laws of my conscience that cannot be changed" she replied, determined as always, behind the sea in her eyes that could barely hold now the flood of the tears.

Thomas found himself smiling anyway, and, feeling suddenly softened by the vision of her watery eyes, took her hand and held it between his.

"But you are still human…" he simply remembered her, realizing himself maybe for the first time to be in front of a woman that, despite her strength and beauty, remained still a victim of any weakness and terrestrial fear.

_..And you never should have let go  
You could have joined in the whole show _

_I never should have let go…  
_

She looked down for a moment touched by that sentence which for the first time she was finding herself thinking about too and then she looked up suddenly to him, as to ask to proceed that interrupted thought.

"You should have never let go…" Thomas said sincerely keeping on holding her hand.

"I'm fighting, I have not given up!"

"No, you are giving up this way, you'll never win, you know that… You should have found a compromise and maybe…" he clarified, letting the sentence open.

"Maybe what? Should have I stayed there and joined the whole show?" she asked ironically, wriggling out his grip.

With a quick, he took again the contact and kissed her hand, staring at her in the eyes another time, for the last time, before she left definitively the Royal Palace to not return again.

"You should have never let go" he repeated slowly, maybe more to him this time, while _he was letting her go_.


End file.
